The Haunted Man and the Ghost's Bargain

Redlaw returned the salutation courteously and even humbly, and
looked after him as he passed on. He dropped his head upon his
hand too, as trying to reawaken something he had lost. But it was
gone.

The abiding change that had come upon him since the influence of
the music, and the Phantom's reappearance, was, that now he truly
felt how much he had lost, and could compassionate his own
condition, and contrast it, clearly, with the natural state of
those who were around him. In this, an interest in those who were
around him was revived, and a meek, submissive sense of his
calamity was bred, resembling that which sometimes obtains in age,
when its mental powers are weakened, without insensibility or
sullenness being added to the list of its infirmities.

He was conscious that, as he redeemed, through Milly, more and more
of the evil he had done, and as he was more and more with her, this
change ripened itself within him. Therefore, and because of the
attachment she inspired him with (but without other hope), he felt
that he was quite dependent on her, and that she was his staff in
his affliction.

So, when she asked him whether they should go home now, to where
the old man and her husband were, and he readily replied "yes"--
being anxious in that regard--he put his arm through hers, and
walked beside her; not as if he were the wise and learned man to
whom the wonders of Nature were an open book, and hers were the
uninstructed mind, but as if their two positions were reversed, and
he knew nothing, and she all.

He saw the children throng about her, and caress her, as he and she
went away together thus, out of the house; he heard the ringing of
their laughter, and their merry voices; he saw their bright faces,
clustering around him like flowers; he witnessed the renewed
contentment and affection of their parents; he breathed the simple
air of their poor home, restored to its tranquillity; he thought of
the unwholesome blight he had shed upon it, and might, but for her,
have been diffusing then; and perhaps it is no wonder that he
walked submissively beside her, and drew her gentle bosom nearer to
his own.

When they arrived at the Lodge, the old man was sitting in his
chair in the chimney-corner, with his eyes fixed on the ground, and
his son was leaning against the opposite side of the fire-place,
looking at him. As she came in at the door, both started, and
turned round towards her, and a radiant change came upon their
faces.

"Oh dear, dear, dear, they are all pleased to see me like the
rest!" cried Milly, clapping her hands in an ecstasy, and stopping
short. "Here are two more!"

Pleased to see her! Pleasure was no word for it. She ran into her
husband's arms, thrown wide open to receive her, and he would have
been glad to have her there, with her head lying on his shoulder,
through the short winter's day. But the old man couldn't spare
her. He had arms for her too, and he locked her in them.

"Why, where has my quiet Mouse been all this time?" said the old
man. "She has been a long while away. I find that it's impossible
for me to get on without Mouse. I--where's my son William?--I
fancy I have been dreaming, William."

"That's what I say myself, father," returned his son. "I have been
in an ugly sort of dream, I think.--How are you, father? Are you
pretty well?"